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Time and time again, Seaton's Submersive HP sets itself as the overall "do it all" sub to beat, and in a smaller, mild mannered, tasteful package. Kudos to Mark Seaton and his team. It isn't exactly chump change but spend ~ $2500 one time and your done.

Well done Team Archaea............sounds like the kitchen floor paid the ultimate price to the sub gods.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archaea

134dB from 17 feet away in my room was insanity. My skin felt tingly, my hair felt like it was standing on end. My entire pant material from my feet to my crotch was vibrating - not just the pant leg tips. In fact I've never felt the pant fabric over my crotch area vibrate. That was a bit erie. Jeff what kind of subs you dealing? It was a fun experience, but how often could you repeat it? Destruction ensues!

Oh come on man! You need an OS with those Caps, 140 db is just around the corner, crotch and floor vibrating wildy

The one thing I was almost positive about was the fact that sub C was the Submersive!! It was the only sub that had me grinning uncontrollably during some of the music clips just like it did at the first GTG last May... there is something about that sub when it comes to music.

I'm sure Luke told you that when we were texting back and forth last night I asked him if he could tell me yes or no if sub C was the Submersive.... to his credit he said you would kill him!

Ok, enough gloating about being right about the Submersive. I was an idiot when it came to everything else.

Jonathan, I'm not upset about picking my beloved Cap so low. I don't listen like a normal person. For music I like my sub to be anywhere from 12 to 15 db hot and movies around 10 -12 hot. When you and Luke were over recently and we watched the Die Hard scene the Cap was well over 10 hot.

I'm used to that and that's what I think I'm always going to prefer and the Caps do VERY well run VERY hot.

Maybe that's why I loved the OS demo so much? Cranking them 12 to 15 db hot was right up my ally. Especially when you add about....say...40 db's louder than I'm used to.

One more thing. You'll notice my scorecard had MUCH less difference in scoring between the subs. That was no accident, I really did have a hard time being able to tell the difference on most scenes between many of the subs. If you asked me Saturday night to pick the best movie sub it would have been a toss up between the HSU, Submersive, Cap Sealed, MFW, and Orbit Shifter. Nice how my own damn sub is not included in that.

Also, on every sub I felt that the level of the bass needed to be higher in comparison with the speakers. That's not surprising considering how hot I listen at home.

Hmmm... looking at the scores again....and keeping in mind that I slightly lean towards music as the priority..

It looks like it was the sealed Cap that was real close to the Submersive on music for me. I guess maybe I do need sealed subs, my preference is glaring.

Very nicely done guys. As others have said, it's not surprising that the top $$$ subs received the highest rankings.

For those who didn't pick your own subs or your previously proclaimed 'favorites' - I wouldn't sweat it really. Some of the numbers/votes were so close it's unlikely that the differences were THAT significant.

I ran a blind whiskey tasting/challenge a few weeks ago at my place that also left most (if not all) of my friends befuddled. So many of them were certain that they knew exactly what they liked and were positive they could identify their favorites. Looks like there is a theme with blind testing across many hobbies.

(Note: I have not yet read through more than just the subjective comments of each participant yet)

Thanks for your efforts, guys. What an event! Archaea is quite the guy for literally sacrificing his home's structural integrity to host the event. Thanks, man. This event will end up being quite legendary, I think! Thanks also to Husker for secretly texting me the insider details about how he was cheating throughout the whole weekend.

And thanks to two of the best guys in the biz. Jeff Permanian and Mark Seaton are super serious about their businesses, and it shows in these kind of events. For Jeff to unveil a new sub at this blind event shows a remarkable amount of faith he has in his products! And, for Mark to have two of his Submersives shipped just for the event is also a stunning effort. Love it!

I haven't read through nearly all of it yet, or seen the overall scoring or list of stuff, but I did notice one issue that might get picked out by more than a few sore losers:

There's up to a 10db difference between the EQ'd and level matched responses on that mashup graph showing them all.

That's an ENORMOUS, HUGE, TERRIBAD LARGE difference between subs. Combine that with comments that some subs seemed to be run hotter than others, and I think people will likely use this as a sticking point.

I'd like to see that graph with subs names linked to the colored responses to see if maybe loudness = preference (as has been noted on these boards since time immemorial). Audyssey looks really inconsistent. Also, those graphs are super smoothed, masking any real dips or peaks.

Fantastic thread guys. As I am reading, the Cap S acts like a ported sub. It's in a extremely small foot print and edged out the SubM and Cap Pro in the movie department but not by much. Also, the price tag of the CapS speaks for itself. I also agree with you Bosso, you get what you pay for.

I was the first to do the write-up. Once we had the write-up and guessing done and if we were still around, we were individually told what was the correct order for the subs. Both Kwarny and I did our write up and guessing that night/morning. I think Kwarny posted his about 5:00 am after we got back from Denny's. Kwarny, Tesseract, Archaea, and I then stayed up another 30-45 minutes discussing the results. I finally went to bed at 5:45 am and got up at 9 am to head home with HuskerOmaha.

Did anyone else notice how well the MFW-15 dual opp fared? Anyone surprised? Leads me to think my DIY build, with much better drivers, in that design would fare well in another blind test..guess we will see....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hksvr4

Fantastic thread guys. As I am reading, the Cap S acts like a ported sub. It's in a extremely small foot print and edged out the SubM and Cap Pro in the movie department but not by much. Also, the price tag of the CapS speaks for itself. I also agree with you Bosso, you get what you pay for.

Did anyone else notice how well the MFW-15 dual opp fared? Anyone surprised? Leads me to think my DIY build, with much better drivers, in that design would fare well in another blind test..guess we will see....

I noticed and, frankly, am not terribly surprised. I think most everyone would agree that it is entirely possibly to build a sealed sub that is competitive with the high-end commercial offerings for a fraction of the cost.

Emphasis on sealed for the lower degree of difficulty with regard to DIY.

Did anyone else notice how well the MFW-15 dual opp fared? Anyone surprised? Leads me to think my DIY build, with much better drivers, in that design would fare well in another blind test..guess we will see....

For me this is still the million dollar question. Pick up 2 Submersives/Caps or go the DIY route??

I was the first to do the write-up. Once we had the write-up and guessing done and if we were still around, we were individually told what was the correct order for the subs. Both Kwarny and I did our write up and guessing that night/morning. I think Kwarny posted his about 5:00 am after we got back from Denny's. Kwarny, Tesseract, Archaea, and I then stayed up another 30-45 minutes discussing the results. I finally went to bed at 5:45 am and got up at 9 am to head home with HuskerOmaha.

Kudos. I would not have been able to bite my tongue, given the circumstances

I was the first to do the write-up. Once we had the write-up and guessing done and if we were still around, we were individually told what was the correct order for the subs. Both Kwarny and I did our write up and guessing that night/morning. I think Kwarny posted his about 5:00 am after we got back from Denny's. Kwarny, Tesseract, Archaea, and I then stayed up another 30-45 minutes discussing the results. I finally went to bed at 5:45 am and got up at 9 am to head home with HuskerOmaha.

You should have just said Jeff P has loose lips!!! If you two didn't tell anyone after Jeff spilled the beans than nobody else knew before this AM. I PLEADED with Jeff not to tell anyone!!! Jeff was going on about 60 hours or so without much, if any, sleep and he was enjoying the irony in the scoresheets too (HuskerOmaha's mostly). At this point Husker was asleep hard on the couch upstairs. I made a joke to the fellows about writing "loves ported" on his forehead with a black permanent marker, and should have followed through.

Buddy...
I feel bad for you on this one. Luke and I cringed when we were reading the scorecards...

when I read these results, I was also like OH SNAP as well

Does it have something to do with the fact you were wearing earplugs?When I put the plugs in for F and G, I took them out after a couple tracks because I couldn't hear crap.....but you had nice ones in!

The guy immediately next to you, desertdome, picked the caps as best overall sub. You picked them as 3rd worst. The guy sitting immediately in front of you?? (I think in front of you?) - Greg AKA HuskerOmaha, picked the caps as the best subs overall, (but of course is trying to change his vote and say he only liked them best for music so he could hedge his bets against falling only for ported subs and lose all shred of dignity).Alright you little cheater, I didn't see your edits until today on this. I liked the CAP PROS the best for music, looking at my movie scores, you can see they are 5th is it? Your persistence on this is impressive, but wrong! If you truly decide you liked the submersive best and it does appear from your scorecard that you prefer sealed --- then Luke said he'd trade you his HSU's (which you rated higher) for your caps without too much fuss. ha. If not that direction - I'm pretty sure HuskerOmaha is just dying to get a pair of ported subs ---so you do have options. I'd get a pair of Cap Sealed before the ported based on this, due to my more movie listening than music. BUT, if I could blend them all, 2 cap pros and 2 cap sealed, please...haha I'm sorry bud...I think your vote might be the most painful I've seen so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archaea

HuskerOmaha -

Schifter in the house!
For what it's worth my friend. You truly do owe me 20K for my old corvette worth half that much, and you owe me a steak dinner based on your absolute assurance, that sub B could NOT be the ported CAP.Dang, I really don't have 20k
Don't you recall how just yesterday you grabbed me by both shoulders with un-nerving enthusiams and said sub B was absolutely the best sub for music bar none.I did, and I have owned up to itI believe you said it was 4x's better than any of the other subs demoed for music and you HAD to know what sub it was, and it just COULDN'T be the Cap Pros or you didn't even know what you'd do. You were so sure it wasn't the cap pros that you'd pay me 20K for my corvette and buy me a steak dinner if it was. I'll admit - during this little breakdown you had you almost made me crack right then and there and I nearly let the cat out of the bag --- but I played it cool as a cucumber. YOU! After bad mouthing ported subs for the last...um...six months that I've known you and leaving me tasteless voicemail after voicemail about how you could hear my ported cap chuffing all the way from Omaha.Did I mention the Cap Pro was chuffing? I changed my slogan, if you can see Do you recall penning the term "anti-ported" as your forum slogan for the last few months? What about all that talk about how 'it's all in the bandwidth baby', etc etc etc. Through all that charade --- You ended up being found out as a closet ported sub fan...and I knew it all along. Putting words in my mouth

I'll never let you live this down! -- but hey we're still friends right? :P
Alright I'm done...

Oh,

And by the way...The very common point made in the subjective comments about sub B mysteriously lacking anything at all during the lowest frequency movie scenes, was because the inuke amp completely cut out and turned off during HTTYD, Hulk Cop Car and U-571. The volume levels we used I guess were just too much, though I didn't think they would be (crossed my fingers otherwise). The Inuke reboots fast and starts playing again so it was never out long, but it played the very first note of the helicopter blades on black hawk down for instance and then shut off competely until the blade scene was finished...doh....The amp never makes a bad noise with the caps when it fails and reboots, it just quits putting out sound for a couple short seconds while it reboots. In practice all the lights go red, the LCD turns off and it reboots. Whole thing happens in literally prolly 2-3 seconds, but you absolutely miss the lowest notes - hence the common observance in the subjective comments from the voters. Knowing my setup and the audition clips VERY well, I knew exactly when it did it, and you'll notice a few other people picked up on it too. Stitch1 for example - read his subjective comments. I would definately have been alright with the 20hz tune and a HPF, but I chose the 15hz tune with no HPF for the caps and Luke the 16hz tune for the HSU because we wanted wanted to make the ported/sealed comparison more difficult for everyone and see how that panned out! You know what the doubled irony is for me? I dislike music on the caps with the 15hz tune. I like it much much better in the 20hz tune, but I like movies more in the 15hz tune. So I sacrified music quality to get movie quality thinking I had a better shot at placing high with movie content and couldn't win against the sealed competitors for music content in either tune. Oddly I ended up doing better in music than movies because of my reluctance to drop coin on a capable amp. haha - the whole situation is laughable on both sides...my friend we are both a mess.

OR THE FACT THE CONTENT WAS BELOW THE CAPABILITIES OF THAT PORTED SUB, WHERE MUSIC IS ALL ABOVE 20 HZ. I ONLY HEARD IT CUT OUT ON BHD

But hey -- if you decide you might actually consider buying certain ported subwoofer, I have a friend who is listed two posts above you who obviously has discovered in the clearest possible way that he definately does NOT like ported subwoofers, and is the owner of two in quite perfect condition. One delievered new on Saturday even. Perhaps the two of you, Sheldon meet Greg, can arrange for some soft of trade - your sealed for his ported. Both discover bliss and live forever happily after!
Meanwhile I'll upgrade my amp with either a Peavy IPR DSP 7500 or something equivalent when they finally release and be ready for the next one of these meets! For now the Inuke meets the needs in my room and has more output without failure in the 20hz tune and doesn't fail in the 15hz tune if I'm not playing nonstop heavy bass movie tracks for 35 minutes!!! That and the little Inuke amp went beyond it's limits but still managed the highest SPL peak number of the evening at 123dB. weird eh? It's a little beast. Mark and Jeff's amps are MUCH MUCH MUCH better, but they cost a LOT more. For $360 shipped, I like the little guy!

Sheldon, I have a clone amp and a pair of Pi-18 drivers so far. Um...should we be making some phone calls?

Just kidding, looking at it all, I'd probably get the JTR Sealed Caps before the Cap Pros. Orbit Shifters I liked but too big for me, Submersives would also have to be in the mix based on my scoring. And how about those MFW DUAL OPP, admit it folks, most of you liked them and rated them well. Give DIY some love you bandwagon fanboys.

I'll probably just have to build out this DIY I've started so I can prove to Archaea it is worth it. Man, I'm stubborn!

bosso has it right about dollars equaling performance, but another thing that strikes me is that there was only one sub pair that consistently was BOTH noted as having significantly lower loudness on every scene AND was noted by almost everyone as making bad sounds, like chuffing and bottoming and distorting. That sub was obviously outclassed - at any price point.

The subjective performance of the CHT 18.1 pair surprises me, honestly. I did not expect them to have the extension of some of the other entrants but did expect them to fare well on music. I certainly did not expect many blind testers to rate them even below the Klipsch control sub

Following is the collated commentary on these (Sub "D")

Quote:

desertdome: Sub D - This sub was my least favorite. At the levels we were listening at (-10dB) it was distorting the whole time. It wasn't very articulate and and lacked in dynamics. I think we had the levels to high for this sub or maybe Audyssey had done something. At any rate it hurt my ears from the beginning with the 100-20 Hz frequency descent clip.This was the first sub I thought was ported.

Quote:

HuskerO: These fared the lowest on the music to me. I felt their depth was the weakest, but otherwise they were smooth and had a nice sound to them. I say their depth was the worst, because they were the only ones I heard that made a weird sound on the 100-20Hz sine sweep. Around the bottom of the sweep, I heard a mechanical rattle. I thought it came from the sub(s), but maybe it came from something in the roompretty sure it was the sub though. I thought they blended well with mains, I started getting annoyed with the subs being hotter than the mains in some clips/tracks (SEE DUBstep), but these didn't overpower. These sounded like my CHTs I just sold in sound imaging
For movies these were weird. I had a few clips where the sounded great, but also a handful that were just OK. These didn't have as much output as all of the other setups except the Sub A and the Klipsch they topped to me in my spot. I'm basing my guesses here on my perceived lower output ability in Archaea's room (vs my GTG).

Quote:

Kwarny: Sub D - This was a downer. I hated it for music, especially repetitive beats or music with constant lines. Movies sounded better but it seemed some range of the frequency band missing. It sounded similar to Sub A but with less extension. I guessed horn first but changed it after the next round since I forgot there was another ported sub in the mix.

Quote:

jedimastergrant: Sub D was a huge let down compared to C. The lack of output was the most disparaging quality. It did nothing wrong but I did not find myself smiling. This may have more to do with the lower perceived output than anything else.

Quote:

stitch1: Sub D: Oh where to start on sub D? It seemed to have the least output of all the subs tested. But I really liked it for what it was. Where some subs wowed me with their output this one was completely different. We started each test off with a sweep I believe it was 100hz to 20hz. One of the two subs had what sounded like a port chuffing near the end of the sweep. Other then that everything in my mind was telling me this was a really good sealed sub. I was thinking it sub sounds fantastic on music. It was very dynamic. Again overall it was not as loud. Where some subs would just power through a clip this one could really play soft sounds as well as show some meat to its bones on the hotter tracks. I really think this is the HSU sub or a sealed that just didn't have as much power as the other amps. I honestly don't know what all amps were used so that could be the case. But for now I'm not only sticking with ported I am going out on a limb to claim it as an HSU even though I had never even seen an HSU product in person before.

wlelandj: Sub D: This sub was smooth, with ok accuracy and good depth; a fun sub. It' s that lower accuracy that I think caused it to not rate as high in movies as some of the others. I just didn't feel I was getting the definition between the notes like I did with some of the others.

The fact that some identified "port chuffing" on a sealed unit is curious; as is the perceived mechanical noise. Can the iNuke 3000 push that driver beyond xmax? We don't know the T/S of that particular driver but I don't believe the iNuke puts out any more power than the Dayton amp. Was it hooked up stereo 8 ohms each or some other config?

Sheldon, I have a clone amp and a pair of Pi-18 drivers so far. Um...should we be making some phone calls?

Just kidding, looking at it all, I'd probably get the JTR Sealed Caps before the Cap Pros. Orbit Shifters I liked but too big for me, Submersives would also have to be in the mix based on my scoring. And how about those MFW DUAL OPP, admit it folks, most of you liked them and rated them well. Give DIY some love you bandwagon fanboys.

I'll probably just have to build out this DIY I've started so I can prove to Archaea it is worth it. Man, I'm stubborn!

I'm feeling like the king of indecision right now. To give you an idea, as we speak I have finished sanding my wall (using the wall as a 158" framed screen) and am going to repaint my wall/screen today. Wasted a lot of money but in the end I just wasn't happy with the paint job/screen so I'm going with a non-gain surface/paint job this time. So, I can't decide on a screen or a sub - nice. Ok, enough OT.

As I'm working my thoughts are on the Submersive....ah sweet Submersive....

I just don't know if I'll be happy in long run knowing that I preferred the Submersive for music in TWO shootouts including a blind one.

The sealed cap was damn close though, and I prefer the looks of it - it's so tiny!! For music I thought there was a big gap between my top 2 picks and everything else.

Anyway, I am considering the possibility that there might be a chance that I might decide to *gulp* sell the Caps.

Of course I'm going to try out the 2nd Cap in my room before I make up my wishy-washy mind.

I'm feeling like the king of indecision right now. To give you an idea, as we speak I have finished sanding my wall (using the wall as a 158" framed screen) and am going to repaint my wall/screen today. Wasted a lot of money but in the end I just wasn't happy with the paint job/screen so I'm going with a non-gain surface/paint job this time. So, I can't decide on a screen or a sub - nice. Ok, enough OT.

As I'm working my thoughts are on the Submersive....ah sweet Submersive....

I just don't know if I'll be happy in long run knowing that I preferred the Submersive for music in TWO shootouts including a blind one.

The sealed cap was damn close though, and I prefer the looks of it - it's so tiny!! For music I thought there was a big gap between my top 2 picks and everything else.

Anyway, I am considering the possibility that there might be a chance that I might decide to *gulp* sell the Caps.

Of course I'm going to try out the 2nd Cap in my room before I make up my wishy-washy mind.

You won't be happy...you'll be bothered by that as long as you still own them. Not only that but you obviously like sealed sub sound better!!!

Sell them to me - (at a steep owner's remorse discount). I'll love them and I'll give them a happy home where they can frolick around at absurd volumes and be fed well on 20 amp circuits.